Wycombe Council is planning to “improve sport and leisure facilities for the whole community and create a destination that could become a sporting centre of excellence.
Facilities that we are considering include a community stadium, training academies, health and fitness facilities and a wide range of publicly accessible sports and leisure amenities.”
They need between 15-35 Hectares to build the luxury sports facility, hotel and conference centre.
Sounds fabulously expensive! But is it needed and where will it be?!
There are a few options, with the more sensible and cheaper option to improve the current state of Adams Park, and then the option that will affect us all… moving to Booker!
WSDL (Wycombe Sports Developments Ltd) confirmed on Tuesday that it wanted to build a state-of-the-art 17,500-20,000 seater stadium, a cricket pitch, five-a-side pitches and athletics facilities plus hotel and conference centre all at Wycombe Air Park in Booker.
This private venture will host London Wasps and Wycombe Wanders games, and will be a nightmare to the local villages that will surround this area.
Steve Hayes, owner of the clubs says. “This is about building something in Wycombe that we can be proud of, that will deliver a major boost to the community and which will provide a lasting legacy.”
Well, one problem Mr Hayes, this will not be in Wycombe! You are not boosting Wycombe’s tourism or its profits by hosting games so far away from town.
Before the Council spends money on this venture it will be considering the opinions of the locals and will be holding a number of meetings.
It is important that locals stand up for what they believe in, the disruption this will cause will be worse than trying to get into John Lewis on a Saturday near Christmas!
There are no direct trains or buses to booker, there will be more traffic to the area, which means more pollution and yet another area of countryside will be ruined by a corporation who believes they are acting for the good of the people, when in reality they are only acting for themselves.
How much money will this stadium really bring in? Is it worth ruining the surrounding villages for!
If you are irked by this make sure you attend meetings and get online to vote against it . Online Form
Another public exhibition will be held at Marlow’s Court Garden Leisure Complex on October 5 and at the Risborough Information Centre in Princes Risborough on October 14.
The first of two interactive public meetings into the plans will be held at 7pm at The King’s Centre in Desborough Road on Thursday.
The second of the public meetings will take place at the High Wycombe Town Hall on Tuesday, October 12 at 7pm.
Booking is required for both meetings, via community.stadium@wycombe.gov.uk
Couldn’t agree more, it’s a ridiculous idea. Bad for the football club, bad for local residents and bad for the wider communities of Marlow and Wycombe…and i haven’t even mentioned the cost to the taxpayer!
The proposed stadium is being cited as a ‘sports facility’, it is not. It is a spectator facility for people to drive to.
The rugby club may or may not need a new stadium (wanting is a different matter), but why should their ambition have to be at the expense of existing activities, and in particular gliding?
if the gliding club closes, the airspace will be reclassified and there will be Heathrow and Luton traffic passing overhead at 2,000ft. Add that to the extra traffic and the noise and light from the stadium itself – do you want a stadium at Booker?
Lobby your local councillor to get this scheme rejected. Contact details available on http://www.wycombe.gov.uk.
Anyone in doubt should realise that this proposal has disasterous consequences for Marlow, Booker and all surrounding beautiful villages.
For what end? To enrich one individual while decimating the countryside which acts as a natural buffer between Wycombe and Marlow. If you feel strongly about this issue, please do your bit to make the majority heard.
I have to declare an interest as a glider pilot. What gets up my nose though is the way the Developers and the Council seem to treat Wycombe Air Park as a vacant site. It’s not. It has a much longer heritage of sport flying than ‘London’ Wasps has in this area. This is an active airfield with gliding throughout the year including weekdays. Our club is one of the UK’s premier gliding clubs and in addition to producing world and national champions we train around 20 pilots every year many of them youngsters on our cadet scheme. Even the employment argument doesn’t stand up since around 200 people are already employed at WAP and many jobs would just move from Adams Park. It’s a money driven stitch up between the property developer and the council and it should be stopped.
The (very short) consultation has now closed, but you can still lobby your local councillors. You can also make sure that your friends and neighbours are fully aware of how much noise, light pollution and traffic congestion this development would cause.
Just a short letter or phone call to your councillor, or a visit to their surgery, if you could just do that, and encourage your neighbours to do so…..make your voice heard and put a stop to the scheme.
Contact details at http://www.wycombe.gov.uk.
You could also join one of the many action groups, links to some of them can be found at http://www.nostadiumatbooker.co.uk, the gliding club’s campaign site.
There is now a coalition of the many and various groups opposed to the plan to build a huge stadium, sports ‘village’ and 100s of houses on Booker Airfield. See http://www.gasp-no.org for more information and to join the fight.